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Could it be possible that there is a spectrum of choices which represent a trade-off between cost and quality? What if both authors took an already understood a

Could it be possible that there is a spectrum of choices which represent a trade-off between cost and quality? What if both authors took an already understood and practiced idea in our culture and took it to an absurd extreme? Every person will desire different quality for different items. Even Dustin Curtis doesn't get "the best" of all of his items. He says that he does, but if you keep reading, what he really means is getting "the best for him." That's what everyone does. People just pay for as high of a quality as is justified to them by the price. Assuming perfect knowledge, that's theoretically what all consumers do. Different people desire different quality for different items, and have different amounts of money. I love listening to music at work, so I did a lot of research and got a nice pair of $150 headphones with a $30 headphone amp. They're wonderful. Well, well worth the purchase price to me. Could I have paid $1500 dollars and gotten a higher quality set of headphones? Sure. But who the fuck would spend $1500 on headphones? It just wasn't justifiable to me. Some people will buy the $1500 headphones. Some people will buy the $15 headphones. None of these people are following some abstract philosophy. They're just regular consumers in a capitalist society, buying what makes the most sense for them.

chetan51 14y ago
This. Both articles seemed extreme to me, and then again, only the extreme will really make it to the front page. If you rewrote this comment in a blog post and titled it "The Middle-Point", it wouldn't make front page, because it's just plain obvious. Buy what fits at the right point in the spectrum for you, and move on with your life.
mistermann 14y ago
> I love listening to music at work, so I did a lot of research and got a nice pair of $150 headphones with a $30 headphone amp. I was looking into this very same thing yesterday, I'd be very interested in knowing what you decided on for the headphones and amp, or even particularly useful websites for research. (And does an amp make a big difference in your opinion?) I was looking at a bit of a lower price point, around ~$80 or so in case you happened to accidentally soak up some information about that price point while you were at it, but I'm not really financially constrained at all so if you truly do get noticeably better performance a bit higher up I wouldn't mind spending the money. (Aesthetics are also rather important to me, for no particularly good reason since I'd never leave the house with them.)
- rthomas6 14y ago
  I got the Audio Technica ATH-M50s headphones with a Fiio E11 amp. I don't think the amp makes a huge difference, but it does make some difference. For a lot of my research, I read reviews and opinions on head-fi.org and its forums. I picked the ATH-M50s because they seemed to have comparable sound quality of headphones in the ~$300-$400 range, but were reasonably priced. With the amp, they also have a good amount of bass. With and without the amp, they sound very clear, especially high up. This is the first "good" set of headphones that I have owned, so my ability to compare is limited, but I think they sound a lot better than the Bose noise-cancelling ones, and those sound pretty good to me.
  - mistermann 14y ago
    Yes, from the research I did the M50's were maybe the most mentioned model....I was just having a bit of trouble pulling the trigger on the $150 price tag. I have a feeling I'm going to end up with the Koss Pro DJ100, they're supposed to be pretty fantastic for ~$50.

chetan51 14y ago

This. Both articles seemed extreme to me, and then again, only the extreme will really make it to the front page. If you rewrote this comment in a blog post and titled it "The Middle-Point", it wouldn't make front page, because it's just plain obvious. Buy what fits at the right point in the spectrum for you, and move on with your life.

mistermann 14y ago

> I love listening to music at work, so I did a lot of research and got a nice pair of $150 headphones with a $30 headphone amp. I was looking into this very same thing yesterday, I'd be very interested in knowing what you decided on for the headphones and amp, or even particularly useful websites for research. (And does an amp make a big difference in your opinion?) I was looking at a bit of a lower price point, around ~$80 or so in case you happened to accidentally soak up some information about that price point while you were at it, but I'm not really financially constrained at all so if you truly do get noticeably better performance a bit higher up I wouldn't mind spending the money. (Aesthetics are also rather important to me, for no particularly good reason since I'd never leave the house with them.)

rthomas6 14y ago
I got the Audio Technica ATH-M50s headphones with a Fiio E11 amp. I don't think the amp makes a huge difference, but it does make some difference. For a lot of my research, I read reviews and opinions on head-fi.org and its forums. I picked the ATH-M50s because they seemed to have comparable sound quality of headphones in the ~$300-$400 range, but were reasonably priced. With the amp, they also have a good amount of bass. With and without the amp, they sound very clear, especially high up. This is the first "good" set of headphones that I have owned, so my ability to compare is limited, but I think they sound a lot better than the Bose noise-cancelling ones, and those sound pretty good to me.
- mistermann 14y ago
  Yes, from the research I did the M50's were maybe the most mentioned model....I was just having a bit of trouble pulling the trigger on the $150 price tag. I have a feeling I'm going to end up with the Koss Pro DJ100, they're supposed to be pretty fantastic for ~$50.